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Even though you have fewer months in, you are on the piano immersion program of intensive training (level 4/5/6 after 15 months!), and I am doing an hour a day with half spent composing (level 1+ after 2+ years). As such, you have already lapped me several times as far as skill and progress. Sometimes my physical problems or schedule limit my time to less than an hour.

I like the description - "piano immersion program", it is an apt descriptor of how I have approached learning piano.

I take your point about practicing in smaller chunks, I have tried that but it may be worth a revisit. I will also be doing a lot of slow practice as I have found this to be very beneficial.

Edited by earlofmar (07/27/1402:43 AM)

_________________________
Learning piano starts by taking all your confidence and then over many years drip feeding it back to you

After I played half of the Schubert piece in our studio class, my teacher said "good, off to a good start". I was happy because she does not give praise easily. I still have lots more to go for this piece which I'm going to play in my first master class. After I read sight reading thread, I too started it using the books I had. Amazingly I'm getting better.and feeling the benefits when I practice the current pieces. I'm still reading slowly but I'm motivated now.

My sister and niece have been with us for 2 weeks - they just left this morning. We've been away more than half that time and super busy even when home.

I have barely touched the piano and am hoping to get a lot of practice in so I can get my reording done this week!!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

I'm very excited to be learning a piece I have long wanted to play. It's the Chopin Prelude no 17 in A flat Major. I heard a recording of it. I mistakenly thought it sounded easy to play. Years ago, looked at it, and was totally overwhelmed.

Now trying it for real with a teacher, I think I will be successful. I've learned the first 5 and a half lines before all the accidentals start coming into the picture. I'm probably lingering on what I can play longer than I should. But, I get chills when I play the part I can play. I've wanted for so long to learn this piece.

I guess this is in the category of learning a piece of your dreams. I'm really excited about it!

Excited to start learning Hommage a Rameau. Started it last saturday, it will be slow going, but how I progress, I try to work on tidbits here and there and have about a good half dozen pieces slow-cooking on the stove. Hopefully by January I can come out with this and other fresh after-christmas-sounding pieces into my 'repertoire'.

I have a bad habit of over extending myself. I thought those days were over now that I'm unemployed. However it was not the case. I notice now I have 1 piano duet partner, another potential duet partner and finding myself being asked to accompany other instruments. Also my violin teacher set up a duet session with her other violin student who is also a pianist. Each individual activity is fun but I'm getting really busy with interview too. I feel like a kid in the middle of the candy store. I think I need discipline to say no.

Btw (grinning a bit) the piece I'm gonna accompany is Haydn concerto in C major for Oboe and orchestra. I do the orchestra part. My teacher was supposed to shoot me if I take any more, but she said I can do this. Here's a YouTube for the piece. I think it will be fun. I still need to work, but I can see retirement could be lots of fun.

dynamobt - I don't think that there is truly any "easy" Chopin - but it is all beautiful and music for the soul - enjoy your piece!

Brian - How great to have a repertoire building up so beautifully.

My ATOW isn't really any achievement, but I'm looking forward to exploring a new music book - Dennis Alexander Jazz - book 2

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

Just posting here as there is no question/answer stickied thread. When is the next signup for whatever recital? Not a last call like someone else directed me to the aug15th for some reason. An early signup as possible. thanks.

The call for submissions will open Aug 1, and close on Aug 14th, and read the thread carefully for what time it's closing on Aug 14th

Cathy

thanks but this meaning we need to submit a piece by 14th or declare we will do a certain piece? 'closing on aug14th' implies that we submit a recorded piece because joplin recital was open indefinitely. just submitting a recording was a closing date.soory im confused. and i cant find that recital thread

thanks but this meaning we need to submit a piece by 14th or declare we will do a certain piece? 'closing on aug14th' implies that we submit a recorded piece because joplin recital was open indefinitely. just submitting a recording was a closing date.soory im confused. and i cant find that recital thread

The Joplin was a themed recital, and I knew it would take some time for people to coordinate and work on non-duplicate pieces. So it was announced in Oct of last year with the aim of giving folks 6 months to sign up and work on it. Like the ABF General recital, it opened on a specific date (Mar 1), chosen not to conflict with the ABF General Recital, and the submissions closed about 2 weeks later (Mar 14).

The ABF is a regular thing, so it always opens on the 1st of the respective month (Feb, May, Aug, Nov) and closes on the 15th. And you submit whatever single recording you want within that time window. It's a side effect of the recital software: once you lock in the dates and close the recital, no more submissions for that recital can be accepted.

Had a great trip to Seattle for my niece's wedding and some sister time. While we were there we were at the Seattle Center (by the space needle) and found a grand piano outside as part of the art. It was painted a sky blue with images of various Washington icons. The music stand had Mt. Rainier. #1 sister encouraged me to play and strangely enough I sat down and played Chopin's waltz in A minor which I've been memorizing. There were some time gaps but overall it was musical. For those of you who know my struggle to be comfortable playing for others, this was a HUGE accomplishment. I have a picture but it's on my Galaxy III and I don't know how to move it from there to here.

Had a great trip to Seattle for my niece's wedding and some sister time. While we were there we were at the Seattle Center (by the space needle) and found a grand piano outside as part of the art. It was painted a sky blue with images of various Washington icons. The music stand had Mt. Rainier. #1 sister encouraged me to play and strangely enough I sat down and played Chopin's waltz in A minor which I've been memorizing. There were some time gaps but overall it was musical. For those of you who know my struggle to be comfortable playing for others, this was a HUGE accomplishment. I have a picture but it's on my Galaxy III and I don't know how to move it from there to here.

Good for you playing the special piano in public. I would love to see the pic of you and the sky blue piano. Hope someone here can advise you how to post the pic from your phone.

Sometimes I find a piano with a sign saying "Do not touch"... It's the stupidest thing on earth. If we can't "touch" it why they put the piano in a public place??? Anyway, I don't care about the sign, I usually sit down to try the piano and I never had problems with it - well, not counting with my wife telling me to not do it, of course -

Had a great trip to Seattle for my niece's wedding and some sister time. While we were there we were at the Seattle Center (by the space needle) and found a grand piano outside as part of the art. It was painted a sky blue with images of various Washington icons. The music stand had Mt. Rainier. #1 sister encouraged me to play and strangely enough I sat down and played Chopin's waltz in A minor which I've been memorizing. There were some time gaps but overall it was musical. For those of you who know my struggle to be comfortable playing for others, this was a HUGE accomplishment. I have a picture but it's on my Galaxy III and I don't know how to move it from there to here.

This sounds like a major achievement, well done.

You could maybe email the picture from the phone to your computer as a first step

_________________________
Learning piano starts by taking all your confidence and then over many years drip feeding it back to you

Donzo
Full Member
Registered: 03/04/14
Posts: 91
Loc: British Columbia

My AOTW - I've been working on a piece with a lot of little variations from otherwise identical patterns. Normally I memorize pieces quickly and then don't need to look at the music, but here I need to look at the music a lot to remind myself of each little variation per 8 bars. This week I discovered that I'm not looking at my hands anymore (or as much anyway) as an unexpected bonus! It feels pretty good to be moving my fingering around without glancing down. It also seems to be increasing the speed at which I can ramp up on a new piece. Yay!

My AOTW is that I have started a practice notebook. I haven't really settled on how to use it yet, practice time is tight enough without giving up valuable minutes to writing about it. For now I am mainly using it to capture my sightreading work. I've started using "Super Sight Reading Secrets" and I want to keep track of the exercises I am doing and how they are going (many of the exercises have target times). Actually, I guess that's an AOTW too.

My AOTW: Well, it's always exciting submitting a piece to ABF Recital. Although I'm quite busy at the moment, I managed to do all the tasks involved to submit my piece in the opening day. One more lesson in life: think in advance, plan realistically, and act according to the plan. It works for me

Been busy with my new job and haven't kept up with everyone else's achievements,sorry. My achievement is that my teacher said I was her best pupil as I practice a lot and have passion. We also played our first duet together, a simple Adam Carse beginner piece but it sounded beautiful and it was really fun so we played it twice.

Congrats, that is a great compliment from your teacher. Whatever you are doing, keep it up.

My AOTW is getting a recital submission in on the first day. I was planning to try for better and better recordings, but think this will have to be it. No one in the house can stand to hear it any longer!

Week 125: I attend the church coffee house. I play a tribute on the whistle for a recently deceased church member. Being out of practice on whistle, I play an extra note, but no one seems to mind. The sound man is astounding, with enough reverb to get an ethereal effect for solo whistle.

The coffee house lineup includes a former staff songwriter in Nashville, who now teaches a local songwriting class. A singer/songwriter that has a modest level of professional success. A singing pianist closes the night. He also has some modest professional songwriting credits. He suffers from nerves when playing live. His piano playing seems a bit frenetic, perhaps due to nerves, but there is no doubt the man can play the piano. The original songs are often humorous.

Minor aches and pains limit my piano practice time. I play every day, though some days it is 20 or 30 minutes instead of the hour that I would like to do. I focus mostly on my new piece, and my recital piece. I hope to record next weekend, but there are still rough spots. The many recent weeks of light practice and the week away are factors.

/edit to add: a belated happy birthday week to CasinItaly, EarlofMar, Torquenale and anyone else that the forum may have missed. Leo lions roar.

/edit to add: a belated happy birthday week to CasinItaly, EarlofMar, Torquenale and anyone else that the forum may have missed. Leo lions roar.

Always interesting to rear your entries Sand Tiger and thanks for the birthday wishes and Leo comment which really made me grin.

I have written about this before as an AOTW, when I was doing a Tausig exercise I marveled at how my finger control and strength improved. This week I have noticed again what I can only describe as a radical improvement, this time in dexterity. I have for the past four months began a daily regime of scales but am also into the second week of a really intense working through of a piece which demands fast agile fingers and I can feel it is paying off.

Of course there is always the chance the piano fairies have been in and regulated a digital piano!

Edited by earlofmar (08/02/1409:25 PM)

_________________________
Learning piano starts by taking all your confidence and then over many years drip feeding it back to you

AOTW.... Am enjoying myself with my piano and staying home and alive. It's that time of year again. The Rally has been in full swing since last Thursday. Even thought it doesn't officially start until tomorrow (Monday). I also have another reason to close the windows. Besides not liking people to hear my playing down on the first floor. They often come outside. Can hear me too easy. Also, now, with windows closed. I don't have to hear that obnoxious, offensive, flatulation, from morbidly obese scooters. I was invited by the owner of a company that is my customer to stay there all rally. He suggested I just tell my company my truck broke down there. Will take a week to get it running. I'm thinking of writing them an email and telling them they can find me there. The business is right next door to the Harley dealer. Just outside his fence is a very successful bikini bike wash. Obviously, those poor girls need the money. They couldn't even afford new bikini's. Upon close, objective inspection. Those poor young girls are wearing bikini's they outgrew three years ago.